The Founder (2016) – Adaptation of the True Story of McDonald's That Was Taken From Its Original Owner

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 The Founder is a film adaptation of a true story about the journey of the famous fast food restaurant McDonald's.


The film was released in 2016, directed by John Lee Hancock and written by Robert Siegel.


Among the actors involved in this film include Michael Keaton as the main character Ray Kroc, Nick Offerman as Dick McDonald, and John Carroll Lynch as Mac McDonald.


The movie The Founder shows the story of McDonald's journey that has grown into a chain brand that is known around the world with consistent food quality in each of its branches.




The beginning of the establishment of McDonald's


In 1940, the first McDonald's fast food store was opened by two brothers, Maurice (Mac) and Richard (Dick) McDonald in San Bernardino, California.


They had migrated to California in search of job opportunities, where initially Mac and Dick had their own movie theater as their first business venture.


But the business did not last long before it failed.


This has made them try to venture into other business areas such as food which is always popular.


The McDonald brothers began to get the idea to open a restaurant with a variety of menus with dine-in service like most other food stores of that era.


The following eight years, in 1948, they made a revolution or a significant change in their restaurant operations by introducing a speedee service system, self service, and reducing the number of menus by only providing hamburgers, potato chips , drinks and pies only at low prices.


After 3 months of renovations, McDonald's reopened with an emphasis on food quality, cleanliness and a family-friendly atmosphere.


The emergence of Ray Kroc


In the movie The Founder, Ray Kroc's character is the main protagonist of the story where he first found McDonald's and a big change has happened to the business.


In 1954, Ray Kroc, who was a salesman of a multimixer drink machine from Illinois, was surprised by the number of machine orders he sold by McDonald's.


This is because he has tried many times to sell the machine to many other restaurants but has not received any response and most of them are not interested.


Therefore, the order of up to 8 multimixer machines by McDonald's made Kroc feel excited to see for himself the condition of the McDonald's restaurant.




When he got there, Ray Kroc was very impressed with the system used by McDonald's and he asked the two brothers to tell how they got the inspiration to create and use the fast food system in their restaurant.


Ray Kroc had never seen a restaurant with such an efficient system as McDonald's before.




Kroc saw the potential of McDonald's restaurants and suggested to Mac and Dick to expand to several branches across the US.



At first Mac and Dick rejected the proposal saying that they had tried to open another branch in the past but it had failed.


Mac and Dick are very concerned about the quality of their food, therefore the opening of a new branch will put a burden on them in maintaining quality.


Ray Kroc Joins McDonald's


Ray Kroc finally offered himself as the head who would monitor the quality of food and cleanliness in each new branch that would be opened.


On April 15, 1955, Kroc opened the first McDonald's branch in Illinois and launched McDonald's Corporation to replace Mc Donald's System Inc.


Kroc wanted to make McDonald's an icon for the US with a unique building with red and white tiles and yellow arches known as golden arches to distinguish their food stores from other stores.


Kroc previously assured Mac and Dick that his mission to expand McDonald's in every region in the US is like the US flag flying on every government building and the symbol of the cross located on the top of the church building in every region in the US.




Financial problem


After a few years passed, Kroc faced financial problems due to the high cost of using the refrigerator to store ice cream, debt and little income from his partnership with McDonald's as per the signed contract.


The problem of the cost of storing ice cream was able to be addressed by Kroc when the idea of using milkshake powder was suggested by Joan, the wife of one of the investors working with Kroc, to replace ice cream in order to cut the cost of refrigerator expenses.


But the idea was rejected by Mac and Dick in order to maintain the quality of McDonald's food.


In addition, Ray Kroc was also faced with debt until he was called by the bank and one day his conversation with the bank officer was overheard by Harry Sonneborn who is a financial advisor.


Harry Sonneborn offered himself to look at Kroc's financial books himself and he found that there was a way to help Ray Kroc, which was by buying land on McDonald's branches.


People began to think that Ray Kroc was the real owner of McDonald's and this made him want to buy and own the brand.




McDonald's Seized From The Original Owner


Mac and Dick feel challenged by Kroc's actions of opening new branches at will and using milkshake powder in other branches without their permission and knowledge.


Ray Kroc's actions in breach of the contract also caused Mac to faint and be hospitalized.


Ray comes to visit Mac and gives them a blank check with the intention of buying McDonald's.


Finally Mac and Dick had to give in and agree to sell McDonald's to Ray Kroc because they felt that they would not win over Kroc's stubborn attitude.


Kroc bought McDonald's for $2.7 million in 1961, equivalent to around $26 million today.


The Founder ends with a scene of Ray Kroc in 1970 practicing to speak in front of a mirror with mimed words and fake facts.


McDonald's now has more than 40,000 restaurant branches around the world visited by around 70 million customers every day.